1963 - CHARADE, excellent romantic thriller

This is an excellent and very entertaining comedy thriller made by Hollywood professionals at the peak of their abilities.  It starred Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn and who ever had the inspired idea to team them up as a romantic couple should have gotten a big bonus.  Here are two stars who really deliver the goods.  Cary Grant had done enough Hitchcock films so he knew how to balance the comedic and suspense elements in this story.  Audrey Hepburn was no slouch either.  She had also performed in romantic comedies and dramas with great success.  These two performers were very experienced actors when it came to making films and they really knew how to deliver the romantic couple goods.

 

The director Stanley Donen had worked at MGM during it's peak period when they were producing stylish musicals.  Donen along with Gene Kelly had created an impressive body of work with films like On The Town, Singing In The Rain and the underrated It's Always Fair Weather.  On his own he directed Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and Funny Face.   As the musical genre wrapped up Donen focused on sophisticated comedies and in this case romantic thrillers.  Charade was one of his best films.

  

A big part of Charade's success is the screenplay by Peter Stone and Marc Behm which balanced the comedy, romance and suspense elements.  The cinematographer Charles Lang was one of Hollywood's top cameraman who had worked with John Sturges, Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang and Joseph L. Mankiewicz. With this kind of talent Charade could hardly miss.  It was a critical and commercial hit. 

 

The running time is 113 minutes.  

1963 - WINNETOU aka Apache Gold

An odd bird of a western film.  This is in many way a typical "Cowboys vs Indians" movie from an original story by a German writer author named Karl May.  It was filmed on spectacular locations in Croatia in wide screen and with gorgeous color photography, this film looks really good.  When one thinks of European westerns what comes to mind are the Leone Italian "spaghetti" westerns, however in this case these German movies are I guess "sauerkraut" westerns or something.

Winnetou is a native American who is trying to make peace between the "white man" and the Indian.  This is the first in a series of seven films featuring this character and the character is played by what else, a French actor named Pierre Brice and is he ever a noble "red man" he just oozes nobility. 

American actor Lex Barker is Winnetou's white guy friend.  Barker had played Tarzan in five films and eventually ended up in Europe where he showed up in Fellini's La Dolce Vita and about 40 other European films.  He turned out to be a very popular performer in Europe.  In the Winnetou series he's a character called Old Shatterhand because he's a good fist fighter.  Well anyway Winnetou and Old Shatterhand gallop around Crotia righting wrongs.

 

For an odd ball of a western this film is surprisingly well made.  The action scenes are exciting and it was clearly produced on a large budget.  It's a well told story and doesn't have a lot of slow spots.  Sure everyone speaks in the German language for a film set in the American west which is a little weird.  But I've watched plenty of films from England and between the regional accents and all the slang the "Limeys" utter in that country, believe me subtitled European films are a lot easier to follow.   

The film was written by Harald G. Petersson, the running time is 101 minutes. 

1963 - PT 109, sickening tribute to John F. Kennedy's navy years.

Everyone, well Democrats anyway complain about how Republicans are constantly sucking up to the current President.  Here's an example of the libs really going for it in the ass-kissing department.  An entire movie celebrating the military exploits of the then sitting President John F. Kennedy.  Politicians whether conservative or liberal apparently have no shame when it comes to currying favor with people in power. 

During World War II inexperienced Lt. (j.g.) John F. Kennedy wants to see action.  He gets assigned to a beat up PT (patrol torpedo) boat and only has one week to refurb it or the grumpy maintenance officer will scuttle his command.  After a few suspect adventures, PT 109 is rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Lt Kennedy must now rally to save the lives of his crew.

 

This film had a few production problems.  Warren Beatty was originally chosen to play Kennedy but Beatty could smell a stinker script when he read one.  The White House had a "liaison" officer on set probably to make sure nothing derogatory was allowed to get into the film.  Kennedy had veto power over the director and declined to have veteran Raoul Walsh helm the film.  Admittedly Walsh was on the tail end of his career.

The next choice  Lewis Milestone dropped out of the project also citing issues with the script.  The man who ended up with the job was Leslie Martinson primarily a television director.  Martinson got the job done but he was no John Ford who had already made the best film about World War II PT boats, They Were Expendable, which is really the film to watch. 

 

Cliff Robertson ended up being cast as Kennedy and he probably does about as well as an actor can do having to play a living President.  But Kennedy is portrayed as such a goody-two shoes it's really sickening to watch.  The rest of the cast was made up of character actors the one standout being veteran performer James Gregory who really hams it up as Kennedy's superior officer.

 

This is frankly not a bad film just a really mediocre one. All the expected cliches are in place for any viewer who had already seen about any other war film.  The only thing good about the film is the cinematography of Robert Surtees a legendary cameraman with extensive credits which included Ben Hur, The Graduate and The Sting.

The film was written by Richard L. Breen probably with the White House watching every word and comma he put into the screenplay.  The running time was an overlong 140 minutes. 

1963 - LOVE IS A BALL, undemanding romcom

An innocuous time killer for the most part.  Love Is A Ball is the kind of film that the slowly dying movie studios were still pumping out in their foolhardy attempt to compete with television.  The film was filmed on location on the French Riviera so it looks pretty.  It has a good cast and some of the situations are rather humorous at times.

The semi complicated rom com plot goes like this.  Charles Boyer is a person who arranges very rich people to get married to impoverished royalty. He takes a penniless aristocrat in this case Ricardo Montalban and does a Pygmalion thing to him.  The makeover will make him acceptable to a rich American heiress played by Hope Lange.  Lange is playing a sexy party girl, she was an okay actress but the sexy party girl role may have been a little beyond her acting range.  Glenn Ford figures in this story as a championship auto racer who has to teach Ricardo how to be a race driver.  Glenn ends up going undercover as Hope's chauffeur so the director and writers can create a contrived romance between the two of them.

 

The film has an interesting cast besides the above mention actors.  Telly Savalas is Hope's guardian.  Savalas played a lot of "he-man" roles but in this film he's kind of a foppish character. Character actor Ruth McDevitt is Hope's Grandmother or Aunt or something.  I've seen McDevitt in a lot a lot of movies and TV shows, she was always a reliable presence in a movie.  Also showing up is Swedish actress Ulla Jacobsson in her first American film and clearly trying to break into the international film scene.  She's barely in the movie and really doesn't make much of an impression.

 

The director David Swift was kind of an old hand at this fluffy stuff.  He worked for Walt Disney and make a couple of good films, The Parent Trap and a very good version of Pollyanna.  He went on to make Good Neighbor Sam and an excellent film version of the musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  

 

For such a light piece of film junk the production was apparently not a happy one.  Glenn Ford clashed with the director frequently, he was apparently in his 'I'm a movie star" mode.  Ford and Hope Lange were a couple in real life which didn't help matters.  Swift was an unhappy camper during the shoot.

The was written by David Swift, Tom Waldman and Frank Waldman, the running time is 111 minutes.

1963 -TARZAN'S THREE CHALLENGES, entertaining adventure film

 The producer Sy Weintraub obtained the film rights to the Tarzan character from the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate and had a radical idea he would actually make Tarzan films in the jungle instead of some film studio back lot.  Working on a tight budget Weintraub hired talented film crews and shot quickly on location.  Tarzan's Three Challenges was filmed in Thailand and is a nonstop action adventure story.

After saving a herd of elephants in Tarzan Goes To India, the ape man is pressed into service helping the new ruler of an Asian kingdom travel to his coronation while fighting off a local strongman trying to stop the rightful ruler of the kingdom.  Jock Mahoney is back as Tarzan and his opponent was Woody Strode a former NFL football player and member of the John Ford stock company.  Strode is to put it mildly in very good shape in this film and was an excellent opponent for Mahoney.

 

The film is called Tarzan's Three Challenges but it should have probably been called Tarzan's many challenges as it's just one damn thing after another for Tarzan.  An attempted assassination, a forest fire, a test of strength as two water buffalos try to pull him apart and finally a sword fight with Strode on an elevated net which has big jars of boiling oil ready to deep fry the fighter unable to stay balanced on the net.

 

It's well known that Jock Mahoney got dysentery while filming in Thailand and lost 40 pounds which gave him a very lean look during the big sword fight scene.  However the show must go on so they apparently loaded him full of drugs stuck him in front of the camera and kept on shooting.  The result of all of this is an entertaining action film with some amazing stunts and stunning scenery.

The film was written by Robert Day and Bernie Giler, the running time is a lean 92 minutes. 

1963 - THE RUNNING MAN, disappointing thriller from Carol Reed

After being used and abused by Marlon Brando during the remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, the director Carol Reed signed on for a thriller which was primarily shot in Spain.  This should have been a film that Reed could have made in his sleep. After all he was the director of The Third Man, Odd Man Out and The Fallen Idol.  The Running Man turned out to be a big disappointment.

People on the set of The Running Man spoke about Reed's indecisiveness and for the most part Reed does seem to lose interest in the story.  Most of the film’s running time seems to be spent photographing the Spanish scenery which is stunning.  However taking pretty pictures of the countryside didn't exactly make for much of a story.

Laurence Harvey plays an airplane pilot who stages a plane crash in order for him and his co conspirator wife to cheat the insurance company out of their claim.  Alan Bates is the insurance investigator and Lee Remick is Harvey's wife.  Anyway, while hiding out in Spain and waiting for the insurance payoff, Harvey and Remick travel to much to their surprise run into Bates.  Is Bates on to their scheme or is he just on vacation? 

 

It's a decent enough story but the way Reed tells it he just completely sucks the suspense out of it.  Laurence Harvey does his smarty pants British crook shtick, Lee Remick is gorgeous to look at and she has really blonde hair.  Alan Bates seems to be wandering around in the film with nothing to do.  The film is just completely inert.

 

The Running Man was a big disappointment from Carol Reed whose future films seemed to show a filmmaker who had lost the light and was now bogged down in big, expensive and boring Hollywood films.

John Mortimer wrote the screenplay, the running time is 104 minutes.

1963 - THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, a romcom about a little kid I guess

Glenn Ford and Shirley Jones get top billing in this romantic comedy about a single father and his young son.  The son thinks it's time for his dad to find someone to marry again after the death of his mother.  So we are off on another mild romantic comedy adventure as Glenn Ford appears to have his choice of three attractive women. Even though the credits would lead you to believe that Ford and Jones are the stars of this film the emphasis is really on child actor Ronny (Ron) Howard.

Howard has had a very long career in Hollywood. He actually started his acting career at six years old and got a part in The Andy Griffith Show at the age of seven.  In The Courtship of Eddie's Father he is all of eight years old and basically carrying the movie.  It's hard to judge Howard's performance, technically he's a total pro.  He cries hysterically when he has to, he acts cute when it's required of him and he's good at playing the innocent son.  He's impressive but a lot of his performing doesn't seem to have a lot of emotional feeling to it.

 

I'll give the other actors Glenn Ford, Shirley Jones, Stella Stevens and Dina Merrill credit, they know enough to stay out of the way of Howard.  They are basically seconds bananas to this tiny terror of a scenery chewing kid actor.  This film wants to be sort of wholesome entertainment but it's not above throwing in Stella Stevens in her usual thankless role as a gorgeous but clueless bombshell who ends up with Jerry Van Dyke miscast as a "love em or leave em" ladies man.   

 

The film was shot in widescreen and color.  The director was Vincente Minnelli who as usual spends about as much time directing the sets and women's fashions as he does the actors.  Shirley Jones is supposed to play a volunteer nurse but you would never know it from the incredible apartment and clothes she wears, the salary for a volunteer nurse must have been in the six figures back in 1963..

 

The film marches along to it's inevitable end. Will Glenn Ford end up with career woman Dina Merrill or earth mother type Shirley Jones?  Don't ever bet against motherhood.

The screenplay was by John Gay, the running time is 118 minutes.

1963 - THE GIRL HUNTERS - odd ball Mike Hammer mystery

Another Mike Hammer story adapted for the screen with a couple of twists.  Mickey Spillane the author of the Mike Hammer books co-wrote the screenplay.  In an interesting piece of casting Spillane actually played the brutish Hammer himself although although not as brutish as Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly or Armand Assante in I The Jury.  Still there is plenty of unpleasantness to go around.

In this film Hammer has been on a drunken binge for about seven years since his secretary/lover/housemaid, Velma vanished.  After pulling himself together he gets some clues to Velma's whereabouts which in turn leads him to some kind of commie assassin ring whose leader is a guy called "The Dragon."  Along the way he gets involved with Shirley Eaton probably at the height of her beauty.  She was to follow up this film as the "golden girl" in the Bond film Goldfinger the next year.  The film is loaded in early 1960's paranoia particularity when it comes to the Communist conspiracy.

As a detective Mike Hammer is basically a bull in a china shop while he investigates Velma's disappearance.  There are shootings, a very nasty fight in a barn and a truly sick ending.  But lets get real Spillane is no actor but it is Mickey Spillane playing his legendary character which is interesting. To add to the weirdness the film was shot in England with some location filming in NYC.  This film is no masterpiece but it is entertaining.

 

The screenplay was by Mickey Spillane, Roy Rowland and Robert Fellows, the running time is 98 minutes.

1963 - SON OF FLUBBER, sequel to The Absent Minded Professor

As the Walt Disney organization moved into the 1950's and 1960's the cost of production and the box office return on their animated pictures became more problematic.  Animated films like Sleeping Beauty while artistically stunning were so expensive the box office was a lot less than than was expected.  Disney moved more into the area of less expensive live action "family films"  usually with some type of fantasy element or lots of slapstick.

Disney had a lot of success with The Absent Minded Professor, with Fred MacMurry as a chemistry professor who makes a substance in his garage no less that's called "flubber" a bunch of goo that defies gravity.  This sets the film up for lots of slapstick a lot of it admittedly funny and it all climaxed in a zany basketball game with players bouncing all over the gym like Superman.

 

Naturally a sequel was called for and Professor Fred was back this time inventing a gas that makes it rain. In the words of some critic. "If you're going to make a sequel make a sequel, make the exact same movie." And that's what they did here, almost every gag from The Absent Minded Professor is repeated, right up to the wacky football game instead of a wacky basket ball game.  

 

Truth be told a lot of this movie plays kind of slow.  Audiences are now used to a faster pace in their movie viewing and Son of Flubber kind of meanders along for the most part,  There is some funny stuff and Disney did know how to play to their family friendly audience for the most part.  Fred MacMurry was always a decent comic who could occasionally rise to the occasion as an actor working for Billy Wilder.  The film for the most part is just OK.

The screenplay was by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi a couple of Disney veterans, the running time is 100 minutes.

1963 - MAGNET OF DOOM aka L'ane des ferchaux

Jean Paul Belmondo is a washed up boxer who manages to get himself hired as a secretary/bodyguard to a businessman.  Charles Vanel plays the businessman on the run from the police in France as they investigate his shady background.  Eventually Belmondo and Vanel end up in the United States with a suitcase full of money where they are followed by the FBI.

 The director is Jean-Pierre Melville an expert on these types of crime films.  Here he seems to come up a little flat in his film making for some reason.  The Belmondo and Vanel really have to work hard to maintain any interest in the story.  The film has some nice color photography of the United States in the early 60's courtesy of Henri Decaë.  Melville is fairly good at creating a believable situation of 2 Frenchman  who are a couple of fish out of water hiding from the authorities in the southern part of the United States, particularly New Orleans.

However I would say this is one Melville's lesser films and certainly not up there with his later films such as Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge.  The weakness of the film is due to the weakness in the screenplay which can't seem to make their situation very compelling.

 

Written by Jean-Pierre Melville, the running time is 102 minutes.

1963 - FLIPPER, the love story between a boy and a dolphin

What passed for family entertainment back in the early 1960's.  Producer Ivan Tors in an attempt to do the Disney family movie thing put together this very mediocre film.  The story was co authored by Ricou Browning a man known for wearing the "creature" suit in the the Creature From The Black Lagoon film series.

 

Manly Chuck Conners is the a fisherman and Dad to a a young actor played by Luke Halpin who made a career out of acting next to a dolphin in two Flipper movies and a TV series.  After finding an injured dolphin Halpin nurses the mammal back to health and forms a bond with it.  Along comes Chuck Conners who wants his son to get rid of the dolphin (now named Flipper) as it will eat all of his catch of fish.  After a few adventures with include Flipper leading Chuck Conners to a bunch of fish and fighting off a shark to save Halpin from being eaten, Chuck finally  sees the error of his ways.

 

There is so much to say about this film outside of the fact that the story is pretty lame, the direction almost nonexistent and the acting fairly flat for the most part.  The fact that a highly intelligent creature like a dolphin could be treated as some kid’s pet only good for doing tricks is highly questionable and kind of offensive.

Ivan Tors, whose studio was based in Florida went on to produce another epic TV series about another boy's love for a big scary black bear called Gentle Ben.  Well when you're hot you're hot I guess.

The screenplay for Flipper was written by Arthur Weiss, the film runs 87 minutes.  The Flipper theme song was very popular for a while.

1963 - SUNDAY IN NEW YORK, dated but very likable sex comedy.

 Jane Fonda said this was the film where she finally learned to enjoy the film making experience and it shows.  Fonda is extremely likeable as the sophisticated virgin holding off the advances of a boyfriend while falling in love with a stranger she meets on the bus in New York City.

The film is rather dated in it's attitudes about relationships, but the cast and the screenplay by Hollywood veteran Norman Krasna know how to find the right touch in what could have been a rather stupid romantic comedy.

 

In addition to Fonda the film has a fun cast.  Manly Rod Taylor, Cliff Robertson as Fonda's brother and Robert Culp as the boyfriend all seem to be having a good time. The film has lots of footage of early 1960's New York City which is also fun to watch.

 

Sunday in New York has lots of amusing and old fashioned talk about the relationships between men and women.  Norman Krasna was an old hand at this kind of film which was soon to go the way of the dinosaur.

The running time is 105 minuutes

1963 - FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE - the 2nd James Bond film.

 The second in the Sean Connery James Bond series, and the film that locked in the series and the character for a while until the later films with Roger Moore became more outlandish.

The film for the most part closely follows the plot of the Ian Fleming book with the addition of adding the criminal organization SPECTRE to the mix. This at times makes for a rather confusing narrative, but the performances of the cast and in particular Sean Connery keep things entertaining.

The film also has the first scene of Bond getting introduced to his "gadgets."  In the case the tricked out attache case from Q branch.  As the series progressed this became a major trope from film to film as the gadgets became more outrageous.

 

Terence Young directed with a lot of the film shot on location in Istanbul.  Richard Maibaum wrote the screenplay.  The film runs 115 minutes.

1963 - THE GREAT ESCAPE, entertaining semi fictional account of a real event

Probably a high point for director John Sturges.  The Great Escape was a passion project for him for many years.

Sturges probably assembled one of the best casts ever.  Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasence, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, James Donald and David McCallum to name a few.

The film does take liberties with the actual events. But overall it is surprisingly faithful to the true story.

The credited writers were James Clavell and W. R. Burnett but the film apparently had a lot of uncredited writers.  In any case, this is an excellent war film.  Running time 172 minutes.

1963 - 8 1/2

There's  just not a lot you can say anymore about Fellini's 8 1/2 probably his best film.  It usually shows up on those greatest film lists all the time. 

So lets look at a few pictures.

Here's the famous opening with Marchello Mastroianni floating above the roman traffic.

The equally famous ending scene where the director Guido Anselmi directs all the people in his life to parade a round in a circus ring to the music of Nino Rota.

And finally here's Fellini and Mastroianni who is basically playing a thinly disguised version of Fellini.

The film was written by Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Ron

138 minutes.

1963 - I COULD GO ON SINGING, Judy Garland's last film

Judy Garland's final film is an OK drama with some musical sequences.  

The film is kind of a soap opera story of Judy trying to start a relationship with the son she abandoned years ago for a career in entertainment.  The father is played by Dirk Bogarde.  

Apparently Judy was a real handful on the set.  The director Ronald Neame and the star Dirk Bogarde had to deal with a moody high strung prima donna who couldn't be counted on to show up to film her scenes. Some critics have said that her angst ridden performance reveals the true Judy Garland.   Watching the film there may actually be some truth to that.   

Apparently Dirk Bogade was practically a co-director, he spent a lot of calming the high strung Garland.  The rumor was that it was the only way the film got made.

99 minutes, written by Mayo Simon.

1963 - HERZOG BLAUBARTS BURG - a return to form for Michael Powell

After the disaster that was The Queen's Guards, a career low point for director Michael Powell.  Powell's production designer Hein Heckroth arranged for Powell to collaborate with the opera singer Norman Foster who was producing a Bartok opera called Herzog Blaubarts Burg. 

 Powell's version of this opera shows that he still knew how to pull together a film that could have been an unwatchable experience.  Putting opera on film is a very difficult trick. This is a fairly impressive achievement.  

Powell and Heckroth combined color and abstract sets to create a fascinating mixture of music and visual images.  This short film is well worth a look.

60 minutes.